Residents Bring Snow Removal Concerns to Council

Although the only snow in the forecast over the next 10 days is a possible wintry mix this morning, snow was the topic of discussion at Monday night’s town council meeting.

Mayor John Button’s opening comments concerned the that dropped 11.5 inches on Moorestown. Moorestown’s Department of Public Works put in 605 man hours during that storm, Button said.

“We have a snow policy in town that has been in effect in the township for 25 years,” said Button. “During that time several things have happened. Staffing has gone down for obvious reasons and mileage of roads has grown quite significantly. If expectations stay the same, you can see that we’re going to end up with some sort of a problem.”

The township received many complaints during the last storm, most related to the time it took for plows to get to particular neighborhoods.

Members of the Fellswood Drive Greater Moorestown Homeowner’s Association spoke to council about the issues residents in that neighborhood faced during the storm. Residents voiced concern over the fact that their neighborhood, a cul-de-sac of 29 homes, was not plowed until 6:45 p.m. Jan. 27

Head of the association, Christie Graziosi, said residents were concerned with the timeliness and safety issues of snow removal.

“Cars get stuck in the development and nobody else can get in or out,” said Graziosi. “We would like to see if our concerns could be addressed.”

According to Allison Marchant, 12 physicians, a dentist and a volunteer firefighter live on the street.

“We feel as if the percentage of people in our neighborhood trying to help citizens of the community is pretty high,” Marchant said. “We would like to be higher on the priority list.”

“Unfortunately, regardless of your profession, people of all professions throughout town call because they consider their street to be more important,” Button said. “It’s very hard to tackle a township problem neighborhood by neighborhood. It is fair to make sure nobody is always first or last.”

“The township tries to keep priority roads, county roads and through roads open,” said Schultz. “We are looking at addressing those concerns.”

According to Button, 18 trucks were used full time during the last storm to plow streets. Workers can work 16 hours on and then must be off for 8 hours. During that storm, Public Works completed the plowing in Northwest Estates at 2:30 a.m. Jan. 28, 23 hours after they had started the process.

According to Schultz, a typical snow event in this region is about 6 inches of snow.  The township is responsible for clearing 100 miles of township roads and 15 miles of county roads. During a typical storm, it takes about 14 hours to clear township roads. take about five hours.

Adding to the problem is the fact that there are 88 cul-de-sacs and dead ends in town, which are more difficult to plow, according to Schultz.

“Perhaps we could do a rotation so that your road may be last in one storm but not all storms,” said Councilwoman Stacey Jordan. “It’s not fair if one street is last every time.”

“One of the things we’re looking at is whether in the districts we can create sub-districts and rotate the starting points,” said Schultz.

In addition to how the township is plowed, Schultz said he is looking at the township’s snow ordinances, including snow emergency routes.